OK I’ve been doing some ‘mental prototyping’ and I came up with an idea- What if you used the clear end discs that come in a spindle of CDR/DVDR media and use the spindle hub from a dead disk drive to hold it? It would be a bigger footprint but the disks would be sturdier and the connection to the hub would be more reliable. Also with a bigger disk you could use two photoresistors and two light sources and seperate through paths to sync two seperate instrument sources with the same tremolo effect/rate. Also maybe a PWM control for better speed control. Maybe even a 555 dimmer so the light source slowly fades in and out. With careful adjustment of the motor speed and the LED fader rate cycle you could get some cool sympathetic harmonic craziness, added rythmic effects, etc. I’m really fired up on this one as my latest noise machine needs a little something extra. Thanks for the post!

After a day of copper and bronze plating, woke up with a horrid gushing nose bleed from the sulfuric acid. Next time, wear a proper respirator.

While blacksmithing, picked up black hot metal (multiple times), plunged hand in quench bucket. Next time, tap the metal with fingertips.

Picked up an off cut from behind the table saw blade, it slipped out of my fingers and I dropped it on the spinning blade. Nice square bruise on my gut, knocked the air out of me. Next time, hang on to board and consider getting a blade guard.

Stuck my head into the wheel well to see to get the impact wrench on the nut holding the top of the cast iron brake caliper mount. Got it on, pulled the trigger, got whacked in the head when the impact wrench spun the mount and bolt together. Got a concussion. Next time, remove head.

Jabbed a just broken drill bit into my leg, with the bit being pulled forward as my clothes wrapped around the chuck. Next time, don’t balance all my weight on the drill.

Was pulling parts at the junkyard, using the jack that was in the trunk of the car. The car rocked off the jack, I jumped out of the way, but was nearly pinned between the falling car and the one next to it. Next time, go to Autozone.

Near miss with drops of molten MIG wire when sitting crosslegged, and welding. Next time, kneel with a leather apron.

Got seven stiches from a metal burr from a piece of metal I cut and put in my trunk, then it later fell onto my hand. Next time, always always deburr as soon as the metal is cut.

Yet another square bruise on my gut. Stacking pieces of material to cut on the miter saw, the top piece was above the fence, it spun and whacked me good. Next time, keep the stack below the fence.

Using a cutoff wheel in a Dremel, the wheel shattered. A piece stuck in my safety glasses, right in front of my eyeball. Next time, keep wearing safety glasses.

Like these comments? Be sure to sound off in the comments! You could be in next week’s column.

In addition to being an online editor for MAKE Magazine, Michael Colombo works in fabrication, electronics, sound design, music production and performance (Yes. All that.) In the past he has also been a childrens’ educator and entertainer, and holds a Masters degree from NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program.

Now I’m going to be all meta and comment on my comment.The project is coming along nicely and I’ll send a vid as soon as it’s done. I used a hub from an old Discman and it works great but the motor ir came on didn’t have enough clearance so I modded it onto a bigger motor. I also skipped the flashlight and kludged together my own bendy light stalk with a blue LED, some heavy copper wire, and some salvaged parts. I’m also sticking with the rheostat as the PWM just seemed needlessly complex on second thought.